The Problem in Haiti is the Same One Everywhere

While we are disheartened by the havoc of Haiti earthquake, this is not the first time Haiti grabs international attention. Haiti has had the structural problem, and the problem with Haiti represents the same one everywhere not only in the third world countries but in advanced countries: A handful of elite have run the country for their personal well-being.

The following article, “Mud Cookie Economics in Haiti” was written by a Haitian journalist. He was the winner of the Censored 2008 Real News Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism.

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/2_10_8/2_10_8.html

Poor Haiti, the nation they would have us believe is close to a failed state, needs our help once again.

The truth is that while the poor suffer through the current nation building exercise by the UN that forces them to resort to eating dirt, Haiti’s rich are getting richer. Ask the wealthy families like Bigio, Mev, Brandt and the rest of Haiti’s wealthy elite whether they have enough to eat. They were already fantastically wealthy by Haitian standards and have grown more so since Aristide’s ouster in 2004.

All of this has been imposed by the UN who have served as a proxy for the Bush administration’s concept of working with the private sector as the only avenue for helping the poor in Haiti. UN development experts ask us to believe that creating more business opportunities for Haiti’s wealthiest families will result in a demonstrable windfall for the poor. It’s the new neo-liberal agenda that incorporates the old Reaganomics trickle-down theory being instituted by the UN in Haiti. A new name for it might be appropriate in the Haitian context, Mud Cookie economics.

It’s becoming more than obvious by now that this approach isn’t working and what Haiti really needs is a level economic playing field to challenge the disparity between the haves and have-nots. The aforementioned wealthy families have proven over time to be unreliable providers and partners to Haiti’s poor majority. They are in fact predatory monopolists controlling markets and not free market capitalists competing on a level playing field in Haiti. No amount of investment by the international community or charity will alter that fact. This is the real message behind the recipe for mud cookies the poor are forced to eat in Cite Soleil today.

In today’s Haiti it’s all about supporting business and the private sector while abandoning the rest of the population to be cared for by charities. That’s what Bush, the UN and the cadres of economic experts have left Haitians with after all is said and done. It clearly favors those who already have the capital to invest while increasing dependency on foreign largess for the rest. It seems clear enough that until the monopolist hold by a few families on the Haitian economy is addressed, we can expect to hear more about mud cookies in the future.